Nevada no longer able to acquire key drug used in lethal injections

Feb. 6, 2011

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A CLOSER LOOK

Thirty-four of the 35 states that use lethal injection use sodium thiopental in their protocol.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been criticized for helping Arizona and California obtain the drug for their executions.

On Wednesday, a law firm representing six death row inmates in California, Arizona and Tennessee filed a federal lawsuit against the FDA, arguing that bringing the drug from other countries violates the agency's duty to "ensure only safe, effective drugs are brought into the United States."Source: RGJ reporting

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A pharmaceutical company's decision to stop manufacturing one of the drugs used to kill death row inmates has left Nevada without a plan should any executions be ordered in the near future.

In response, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto joined 11 other attorney generals recently in asking U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for help in either finding new sources for sodium thiopental or making the federal government's sources available to the states.

Hospira Inc., maker of sodium thiopental, one of three drugs used during the lethal injection process, decided recently to end all attempts to manufacture the drug, said Dan Rosenberg, spokesman for the Lake Forest, Ill., company.

The company tried to move production of the drug to Italy, but last month, Italian authorities said they were concerned about it being used for executions, the company said in a statement. Since Hospira could not control what was done with the drug once sold, they decided to abandon production plans, the statement said.

Cardinal Health, the Dublin, Ohio-based company that supplied the Nevada Department of Corrections with sodium thiopental in the past, said it does not have any of the drug left in its inventory and will no longer distribute the product, according to spokesman Troy Kirkpatrick.

The Department of Corrections would need 5 grams of the drug to execute a prisoner, according to its lethal injection protocol, but it "does not maintain a supply of the drug," so none is available, said Kevin Ingram, department spokesman.

"The Nevada Department of Corrections has been working with the office of the attorney general in revising the Execution Manual," Ingram said. "Due to the limited supply of the execution drug used in the past, the drug protocol is being reviewed as well.

"No final decisions have been made by the Office of the Attorney general at this time."

In the letter to Holder, the 12 attorney generals wrote that since lethal injection is the "prescribed method of execution," they need help in the "procurement of one of the prescribed medications used in the lethal injection protocols."

Without a source, "many jurisdictions shortly will be unable to perform executions in cases where appeals have been exhausted and governors have signed death warrants," the letter said.

At present, 82 inmates are housed at Ely State Prison's death row, but the attorney general's office, the department of corrections and the federal public defender's office all agree that no executions are imminent.

"As far as I know, there is no one who is in line for execution in the immediate future," said death penalty expert Michael Pescetta, an assistant federal public defender. "I don't see anyone who is anywhere near going unless someone takes it in his head and goes crazy" and ends their appeals.

Most of the people executed in Nevada have done just that: dropped their appeals and become "volunteers." Only one of the 11 people executed since 1976 was put to death against his will.

According to Nevada's execution protocol, an inmate is first given 5 grams of sodium thiopental, which is a short-acting barbiturate; followed by 20 milligrams of Pavulon, which relaxes the muscles; and potassium chloride, to stop the heart.

The most recent man to be executed in Nevada was Daryl Mack, convicted of murdering two women. He ended his appeals and was given a lethal injection on April 26, 2006.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said states facing a shortage or a lack of sodium thiopental will likely move to other anesthetics, such as pentobarbital.

Oklahoma has executed an inmate using that drug, and Ohio plans to, he said.

"If they go smoothly, other states may go that direction," he said. "But it could result in court battles, there are potential differences with the drugs."